DPI PAUL SCHWER OLIVER WHELAN MARCIN KOWALIK
DPI De
PAUL SCHWER
Pl
MARCIN KOWALIK
Irl
OLIVER WHELAN
Though the three artists are from culturally and linguistically different countries (Germany, Poland, Ireland), they have their common ground of art. They work through different media and touch upon different issues but they share the passion for colour and painting space. In their works, despite their modern form, one can discern the strong tradition of European painting, which is their informal, abstract modus vivendi.
At our exhibition in Warsaw, when we first saw our works live, we unanimously agreed that they perfectly complement one another. I cannot tell what makes the juxtaposition so powerful. We both have created geometrical as well as organic works. In our works we are both fascinated by colour and the painting potential resulting from its deliberate use. But though we are both immersed in our painting worlds, our general approaches towards a depicted painting reality are quite different. In a quasi-illusionistic geometrical construction Oliver juxtaposes structures rushing at different speeds, in different directions and coming from different places in time. Though I can perceive a common genesis of the structures, their confrontation in such a form is nonetheless an experience of pure surrealism to me. For Oliver every brush stroke is significant. He separates single tracks of paint like letters from a sentence. He scrupulously collects them, scrutinizes them, to finally use them anew. He constructs purer ‘sentences’ with them. He uses a simpler ‘language’, a more crude one. He tries to extract the essence. Paintings constructed in such a manner have an organic effect on me. Some of them bring maps of northern frozen areas of our planet to my mind . Other ones, quite the reverse, are like macro close-ups of that area. Sometimes these two perspectives merge in one painting. The emotions I experience when looking at these works are strongly related to the ones I felt during my visit to Oliver’s homeland. Walking along the coast in Ireland, the country and its inhabitants seemed both harsh and beautiful to me. A view over the endless Irish Sea spreading in front of me, evoked a feeling of harmony with the nature and the world. And this is what Oliver’s paintings are like to me.
Marcin Kowalik, Zamość, 2013
OLIVER WHELAN
Oil on canvas
60cm x 50 cm, 2012
Oil on canvas
60cm x 50 cm, 2012
Oil on canvas Detail
60cm x 50 cm, 2012
Acrylic on Board/wood
75cm x 100 cm, 2009
Acrylic on Board/wood
75cm x 100 cm, 2009
Acrylic, lambda print on aluminum
127cm x 170cm 2013
Acrylic, lambda print on aluminum
127cm x 170cm 2013
Acrylic, lambda print on aluminum
127cm x 170cm 2013
Marcins practice is a journey into and through the Illusionistic properties of painting. It’s a journey into the imagined and unimagined world of the subconscious as represented by the painted space. The questions that pepper our reality are numerous and complex. The questions and answers that we are receiving from experiments in the quantum world are showing us that the place in which we live is just a small part of a very complex reality. One of multiple dimensionality and or multiple existences. Marcin’s painting reflects some of these concepts. In that he has the ability to place the viewer in multiple positions of time and place. Painting can construct a reality where light (colour), Space (time), are constructed in a two-dimensional space, but can exist in a three dimensional illusionistic experience, with multiple potentialities. For example when is a wooden table a table, or is it simply a tree? Or is it all just an illusion? As is the case in Marcins paintings. Marcin looks into to the past and the future simultaneous. Scenes from the 14-century are shifted into the now. The viewer’s position is constantly being adjusted, we not only experience the works we actually inhabit them. In some of the work, the viewer is actually in the painting surface itself, through the use of projection. The works not only changes our perspectives but also change the actual space and time in which they are viewed. It brings us back and forward in time and space, into the real and illusionistic space. He is constantly changing our perception of what is reality and what is space. Oliver Whelan, Dublin, 2013
MARCIN KOWALIK
“Space of Travel – Compilation” – Acrylic
130 × 200 cm, 2012
“Table from the Alice room” – acrylic
70x100 cm, 2012
“Fracking” – Acrylic 140x140 cm, 2013
“Studio” – Acrylic/oil
130x200 cm, oil, 2008
“Deconstruction, Phase V by Paolo Uccello” – acrylic/oil
145x245 cm, 2012
“Mirror Phase” – acrylic/oil 55x95 cm, 2012 “The Absorbed Ones” – acrylic/oil 130x210 cm, 2012
“San Romano Battle“ – acrylic
130x200 cm, 2014
“Source“ – acrylic
200x130 cm, 2013
“Aftervision of postprojection”– Acrylic 110x110 cm, 2012
“Construction of View After” – acrylic “View After in a Studio” – Acrylic
130x200 cm, 2013 130x200 cm, 2013
Within Paul Schwer’s painting practice color, space, light and movement play an integral part, yet they do so in a way that is far removed from how they manifest themselves within the two dimensional canvases of tradition. Schwer’s output varies in scale dramatically, spanning from vast installations that fill public spaces, galleries and unused buildings, to smaller, discrete objects affixed to plinths, walls and ceilings. Schwer transforms the flat picture plane of abstract painting into a three-dimensional space that, through his reoccurring use of light, both artificial and natural, and transparent materials, continues to focus the viewer’s gaze on the gestural application of paint. An approach that has described as the spatialisation of colour (Berg et al., 2008). Smaller works, such as the recent Boa series, begin as flat Plexiglas plates painted with broad brush strokes of colour pigment. Then, in one transient moment, through high heat and considerable force, they are spun, twisted and folded into complex labyrinthine structures. In this brief action, the two-dimensional gestural picture plane is transformed into a three dimensional body of colour that captures the performativity of its making. Within larger works, paint, coloured plastic, and pigmented latex are juxtaposed with neon lighting and cables. These structures aggressively assimilate and colonise various buildings, transforming them with their luminous presence and colourful tentacles. They are like expanding, chaotic scaffolding that is freestanding, yet on the verge of bursting asunder under their own weight.
PAUL SCHWER
“Wallpainting”, Installation, Open Space Art Cologne, 2010
“streptococci� with performance interference of Marcin Kowalik, Muenster 2008
“Billboard Painting”, Neulicht am See - Hannover, 2008
Installation, “Billboard”
“Stele”
“Home”, Skulpture projekt Heimattage Donaueschingen, 2012
“Wallpainting”, Installation ‘ROUGH UP’, Neue Galerie Gladbeck, 2011
“Baos”
OLIVER WHELAN Oliver Whelan was born in Dublin. He went to the Waterford College of Art and Design where he studied for one year, was excepted into The National College of Art and Design Dublin in the 1970’s receiving a first class honour in painting. On the completion of his degree Oliver won the Australian European Award in 1980, for oneyear study in Australia. He had a solo show in Melbourne at the end of that year. On his return he was invited to lecturer at the National College of Art and Design and College of Marketing and Design. In this time he initiated and organised the very first studio complex in Dublin, which spurred on a number of other studios in the city. During the 90’s he became a committee member of the Irish open Exhibition: Living Art. (Irelands premier open Art exhibition) In the early 2000 Oliver became a Board member and then Chairperson of CIRCA an Irish and international Art Magazine. He also won a number of awards including Independents Bursary Awards and Department of Foreign Affairs Travel Award to exhibit in the Australian Bicentenary Exhibition. Also received a number of other travel scholarships from the Department of Foreign Affairs to exhibit in Mexico, Australia and Poland. He has been exhibiting from the 70’s. During this time he would have had 20 solo shows, including shows at Realities Gallery, Melbourne, Australia, Temple Bar Gallery, and Dublin. The Marie de France Gallery Jalapa, Mexico and the RHA Gallagher Gallery, Dublin. He also had exhibited in hundreds of group exhibitions. Samples of these would be: Three Artists Exhibition, Projects Arts Centre Dublin. The Fruit Market Gallery, Edinburgh, Scotland. Guinness Peat Aviation Exhibition, Royal Hibernian Gallery, Dublin. The Edinburgh Festival / Group Show invited artist. Three in a Landscape, Guinness Hop Store, Dublin, Travelling to 7 Galleries across Ireland, including, Sligo Model Gallery, Butler Gallery Kilkenny, and the Wexford Arts Centre. Also OPW State art collection traveling exhibition to European capitals. RHA invited Artist (Ireland’s premiere open Art exhibition). Municipal gallery Dublin. The Banquet Show, Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin. NCAD collection Show, NCAD Gallery and recently the Group show at Galeria Stalowa Warsaw Poland (Nov 2013). Oliver contributed two pages to “The Great Book of Ireland”. In 2002 Oliver gave a lecture on his practice at symposium. Art in the digital world. Tate gallery, London 2002/2003. Residency at studio Atelier 303. Berlin, Germany. Oliver currently lives in Dublin, and spends summers in Berlin. He is a lecturer in Painting at the National College of Art and Design in Dublin, Ireland.
MARCIN KOWALIK Was born in 1981 in Zamość. In years 2001-2006 he studied at the painting department at the Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow. He gained a doctorate in 2009. He currently teach painting at the Cracow Academy. Kowalik’s work includes painting, installation, objects and performance. He works as an organizer, curator and artistic supervisor. He is the author of painting cycles ‘The Space of Travel’ (since 2006), ‘Landscape in a Box’ (since 2007), ‘Michał’ (since 2007), ‘The Unknown Kingdom’ (since 2008), ‘Back to Basics’ (since 2010), ‘Mirror Phase’ (since 2011). He was ranked at the top of Kompas Młodej Sztuki (the Compass of Young Art). He has participated in about 40 exhibitions in Poland and abroad. He has had over 20 individual exhibitions in Hamburg, Leipzig, Düsseldorf, Dublin, Warsaw, Cracow (The National Museum) and other cities. He is a holder of scholarships of the Minister of Culture and National Heritage, the president of the city of Cracow and the President of the city of Zamość. In 2007 he participated in workshops for art curators – Crosskick Academie, Berlin organised by AdKV. In 2007/2008 he received a doctoral scholarship at the Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow. In 2008 he received a residence scholarship in Ateliers Höherweg 271 in Düsseldorf. He is also a holder of the Grazella Foundation scholarship. He gave guest lectures at the National College of ART and Design in Dublin (Ireland) and at the University of Ostrava (the Czech Republic). Together with a philosophy historian Ewelina Zwolan-Gottfrund he gave guest lectures in the European Union House in Dublin and in ‘Zajezdnia’, the gallery of the University of Maria Curie-Skłodowska in Lublin (Poland). His works can be found in the collection of the Jan Matejko Academy of Fine Arts Museum in Krakow, Regional Museums in Stalowa Wola, and Chełm (Poland), the Borowik Collection (http://www.borowikcollection.com/ ), the Clifford Chance Collection and many other small private collections all over the world. Kowalik is the founder of the ‘Wiara w Malarstwo’ (‘Faith in Painting’) scholarship that is dedicated to the students of the last grades of the secondary school of fine arts in Zamość, which he himself attended. He currently lives and works in Cracow. Apart form being an artist, he is also a husband an a father of two sons.
PAUL SCHWER Was born in 1951 in Germany. Schwer has exhibited extensively throughout his native Germany and Europe – including The Netherlands, Sweden, Belgium, France, Italy and Poland – as well as internationally, including China and Vietnam. Working with materials such as metal, glass and UV lights, producing both permanent and temporary large-scale installations and urban interventions as well as smaller sculptural works, Schwer has been the recipient of awards and scholarships including the 1995 Cité des Arts, Paris, France and Artist in Residence at Degussa Shanghai, China (2005–06) as well as the 2009 Stiftung Kunstfonds Bonn, Germany. His works can be found in public collections throughout Germany, including the German Bank Dusseldorf collection and the Siemens Collection, as well as NRW State Representation in Brussels, Belgium and museums in Norway, Slovenia and China. Schwer studied under Professor Heerich at the Düsseldorf Art Academy, Germany (1981–88), going on to become first a guest lecturer (2007–11), then a Deputy Professor of Painting (2011–12) at the Kunstakademie Münster. In 1984 he founded the interdisciplinary art project UnArt.